The Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab at USC recently hosted a conversation with 2014 WNBA champion and 10-time All-Star Brittney Griner.
The conversation is a part of the Charlotta Bass Media Trailblazer Lectures, an annual event that takes place during Black History Month. The Justice Lab awards a storyteller who has made an impact on the media landscape.
The Charlotta Bass Journalism and Justice Lab was created by Dr. Allissa Richardson. In 2020, Richardson was appalled by how several news outlets showed the brutal murder of George Floyd without a trigger warning or without blurring his face. This ultimately led Richardson to creating the Justice Lab in 2022.
“I thought I needed to talk to different newsrooms about things that they can do to prevent retraumatizing the Black community,” Richardson said. “I felt like how can I make sure that at least the students that I’m training don’t make these kind of mistakes in the first place.”
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The Justice Lab is named after Charlotta Bass, the editor and publisher of The California Eagle. The California Eagle is one of the first Black publications on the west coast.
Richardson moderated the conversation with Griner regarding her 2024 memoir “Coming Home” that focuses on her detainment in Russia. During the conversation, Griner talked about her upbringing, the growth of her basketball career and how she met her wife, Cherelle.
“With my pops, he definitely put that work ethic into me,” Griner said during the conversation. “Basically, anything that I was going to do, he was like, go to the fullest.”
At the end of the conversation, one of the attendees asked Griner about her hair journey through her detainment. Griner decided to cut her dreadlocks off due to health issues. Last year, Griner decided to put her hair back in locks.
“I feel like my soul was in my locks,” Griner said. “While I was over there, it definitely was a health reason. They were literally freezing and then staying wet and I was getting sick.”
Prior to the conversation, Griner got a chance to meet current USC students.
“The students got a chance to spend a little bit extra time with her, which they loved,” Richardson said. “[Griner] did a meet-and-greet with our student athletes, many of them were moved to tears because they got a chance to see themselves in her.”
